Hawaii – Kilauea

This morning at 4am Tito embarked on a 12 mile round trip hike through some of the hardest terrain I’ve ever hiked on, to watch and photograph active lava flow at Kilauea.

<Lifted from Wikipedia>
Kīlauea is a currently active shield volcano in the Hawaiian Islands, and the most active of the five volcanoes that together form the island of Hawaiʻi.
Kīlauea’s eruptive history has been a long and active one; its name means “spewing” or “much spreading” in the Hawaiian language, referring to its frequent outpouring of lava. Kīlauea’s current eruption dates back to January 3, 1983, and is by far its longest-duration historical period of activity, as well as one of the longest-duration eruptions in the world.

The hike took about 2.5 hours to get in and 2.5 hours to get out. As the crow flies, it was probably more like 8 miles, but the constant up/down/winding path we had to take to stay safe and stay on track definitely added a lot of time. The last time I shot Kilauea, lava was pouring into the ocean, this time around it was only visible by hike and I’m glad; it was a much more intimate experience.

These photos are for perspective. It’s hard to imagine the scale of this desolate landscape without people for scale.

Can you see the red glow under the ground around Tito? That’s all lava that has cooled off a bit. You have to be very careful where you step because you don’t know how stable some areas are. In our case we had excellent guides to help us – I wouldn’t recommend going it alone. Even so, by the end, the rubber on our sneakers had melted.

And to end, my favourite of them all. This giant chunk fell away and I, perhaps foolishly, jumped in front of it to shoot. The heat was so intense that the skin on my forearms burned and my lens got too hot. Afterwards I was nauseated and dizzy for a few minutes. I could only stand there for a few seconds, but for those few seconds I stared into the heart of the earth and it was worth it.

Awesome photos! My goodness, how brave you are to have 1) hiked that terrain and that far and 2) to have seen such an awesome site many will never be able to see other than through photographs. We were there many, many years ago when everything was barricaded and you couldn’t go past the flow as it went into the ocean. Thought it was spectacular then but it is even more so now through your photos! Thanks for sharing. Bet the colors will make for a fantastic hank of yarn! Be safe and continue to enjoy your trip!

You are making all of us drool when you mention yarn and the colors that can be created . THese pictures are so awesome that I want to get in shape and do the same thing as Tito and do that hike! Will be waiting with baited breath to see the yarn creations when you get back to your “work shop:”